The Parliamentary Committee on Labor, Social Development, and Population discussed the government's plan to abolish the Ministry of Labor and transfer its powers to other ministries, as part of a plan to modernize the public sector.
This came during a meeting held by the committee on Wednesday, chaired by MP Hussein Al-Harasis, and attended by Minister of State for Prime Ministry Affairs Dr. Ibrahim Al-Jazi, Minister of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship Ahmad Al-Hanandeh, Vice President of the Jordan Trade Union Federation Khaled Al-Fanatseh, and representatives of trade union federations and the Workers' House for Studies.
Al-Harasis said that the Ministry of Labor is considered a sovereign ministry, with a work system, powers, and duties that oversee labor and workers' affairs, regulate the Jordanian labor market, care for Jordanian workers outside the Kingdom, and register workers' and employers' unions.
He added that if the primary objective of the merger was to facilitate procedures for citizens, it would be more appropriate to rectify the situation of the Ministry of Labor, rather than abolish it, merge it, or transfer its powers to other ministries, especially since we do not know the extent of the readiness of the ministries and institutions that will assume the Ministry of Labor's duties and their ability to deal with labor problems and disputes.
Al-Harasis emphasized that the government must seek the opinions and recommendations of relevant stakeholders, most notably labor unions, and sit at the negotiating table before making a decision, as they are a key partner and a third party in the equation.
He wondered whether the complexity of the Ministry of Labor warranted merging the ministry with another ministry, given that the employee's rights would be protected and his duties would remain the same, but his reporting lines would change. So what would be the benefit of this decision?
For their part, a number of attending MPs emphasized the importance of a genuine drive to simplify procedures and unify oversight and inspection through a clear mechanism, while avoiding distributing tasks and assigning them to institutions and entities other than the Ministry of Labor.
They added that the Ministry of Labor is a sovereign ministry that contains many important departments that monitor all labor issues as a third party in the equation, meaning that any decision to merge or abolish it would have significant negative repercussions.
They stressed the need for the government to address the status of independent bodies and decide whether to merge or abolish them, particularly given the parliamentary demands for such a decision, which would in turn reduce the state budget and streamline the government apparatus.
These representatives called for the importance of automa